


Far Better Than Joy

by sevenfists



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-16
Updated: 2008-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 06:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10634601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: Ryan breaks up with Keltie while they're in Copenhagen and Spencer doesn't find out until three days later. That's the first sign—or, if Spencer's being honest with himself, the first he pays attention to.





	

Ryan breaks up with Keltie while they're in Copenhagen and Spencer doesn't find out until three days later. That's the first sign—or, if Spencer's being honest with himself, the first he pays attention to.

"I was thinking maybe we should get him some magazines or something," Jon says, when they go to the corner store for cigarettes and soda. "He's so bummed out, you know—"

"What," Spencer says, "I don't know, actually, why—"

"He didn't tell you?" Jon says, and then, "Oh, uh, I'm sure he just forgot, he. Uh, he and Keltie broke up."

"Oh," Spencer says. "Yeah, he probably just. I'm sure he meant to tell me."

"Yeah," Jon says.

Spencer feels stupid for not noticing earlier. Ryan's broadcasting it loud and clear: spending hours holed up in the back lounge, scribbling in his notebook or letting Brendon play with his hair. Brendon's hoping for the rebound, Spencer thinks, and then feels guilty; Brendon's not that conniving.

"Sorry about Keltie," he says before the show that evening, when Ryan's fussing with his vest.

Ryan looks at him, expression vaguely surprised, and says, "Oh, it's. It's fine, we just decided it wasn't working." His eyebrows are raised; he's not sure why Spencer's talking to him about this. Maybe it means something that Spencer can still read him so well. Maybe it doesn't.

"Sure," Spencer says. "Still."

***

They're in Vienna the next week, and Spencer thinks maybe he and Ryan could go out for a drink after the show, maybe go to an all-night diner like they used to, when touring was still unfamiliar and staying out late still felt like getting away with something. He and Ryan ate midnight breakfasts at IHOPs and no-name greasy spoons all across the USA, and Spencer thinks that if they can get back there, revisit that time in their lives when everything was strange and wonderful, it'll fix whatever's gone wrong between them.

He mentions it to Ryan before they go on stage, and Ryan has the grace to look guilty when he says, "Oh, uh, I've already—me and Jon are gonna check out this bar he heard about."

"Oh," Spencer says.

"You should come," Ryan says, one beat too late. "I mean, if you want to."

"No, that's okay," Spencer says. "It was just a thought."

***

Spencer can't remember a time when he didn't know Ryan. Maybe that's the problem right there. Most people shed old friends like clothes they've outgrown. Spencer does it too; he doesn't talk to anyone he knew in his old life in Vegas; he's a different person now, he's been all over the world, he's been on TV, he's not the chubby kid who sat in the back of class and counted the minutes until he could leave and go home, back to Ryan.

He remembers Ryan at sixteen, a week and a half into one of his father's hospital stays, holding his guitar and saying, "We'll get out of here, Spence, and it'll just be the two of us, and we'll be friends forever." Spencer, fifteen and not as cynical as he should have been, believed him.

He believed it for a long time. He and Ryan live together for most of the year, they work together and share every part of their lives, and he spent years thinking there wouldn't be room for them to grow apart.

"Do you think you're a different person now?" Spencer asks Brendon, late one night when they're watching nature documentaries in the back lounge, both of them too exhausted to go to bed or change the channel.

"Of course," Brendon says. "Wait, different from when?"

Spencer rolls his eyes. "From when we were in Vegas. Or, I don't know. From how you used to be. Like, when we started touring. I don't know."

"Yeah," Brendon says, "of course I am, how could I _not_ be different?" As if it's that simple.

***

They've got the afternoon off in Prague and Ryan says, "Hey, uh, you want to go shopping?"

Spencer's not that into shopping anymore, but he knows an overture when he sees one, so he says, "Yeah, sounds great. Just let me grab my jacket."

For all that he's spent time in more countries than he can name, Spencer's mainly seen the insides of venues and hotel rooms, and it's a novelty to wander around downtown, looking at buildings older than anything in the States and trying to pronounce the Czech on the signs. Ryan's better at it; Spencer hits the first accent mark and gives up. None of the letters sound the way they should, and whatever, everybody in Europe speaks English anyway.

They talk about the tour for a while, and then about their plans for the next album, and the food they miss from home; and then, between one store and the next, they run out of topics. It isn't gradual; Spencer finishes a sentence and then realizes he can't think of anything else to say.

"So, uh. I guess we should head back to the bus," Ryan says. Sound check isn't for another two hours, and they both know it. Ryan fiddles with the ends of his scarf and won't meet Spencer's eyes.

"Ryan," Spencer says.

"Don't," Ryan says, even though he can't know what Spencer was going to say, not when Spencer isn't sure himself.

***

In Ljubljana, Ryan crawls into Spencer's bunk in the middle of the night. Spencer hasn't shared a bed with anyone in months, not since Haley came with them for the first part of the tour, and it takes him a few moments to figure out what's going on.

"What," he says, blinking, "Ryan—"

"Shut up," Ryan mutters, and then he kisses Spencer, his mouth closed and dry. It's not sexual at all, but Ryan's oddly intense about it all the same, tilting Spencer's face this way and that like he's looking for something. Spencer doesn't mind. He holds still and lets Ryan do whatever it is he's doing until he finally stops and pulls away.

"Why'd you do that?" Spencer asks.

"I don't know," Ryan says. "I thought..."

He doesn't finish the sentence, and Spencer doesn't ask him to. Ryan falls asleep there, holding Spencer's hand. When Spencer wakes up in the morning Ryan's already gone, dressed and eating toast in the lounge.

Six months ago, Spencer would have made Ryan talk about it, but now he just nods at Ryan and pulls a cereal bowl off the shelf.

***

They have a month off at the end of that tour. Spencer flies from Heathrow to JFK, and from JFK to McCarran in Vegas. Haley meets him at the airport, waiting in baggage claim with a sign that says "Sexy Beast." It looks like she wrote it with lipstick. Spencer laughs out loud when he sees her, and she squeals and throws her arms around him, and he doesn't even care that they're making a scene. Her hair smells the same as always, that same pear shampoo she uses. He's missed her.

"Where's Ryan?" Haley asks, when they're walking out to the parking deck.

Spencer shrugs. "I think he got a later flight."

They spend the first three days in bed, and then Spencer forces himself to do the grown-up things he's been neglecting. He pays bills and goes to see his parents. He and Haley buy a new sofa for the living room. He means to call Ryan—he really does, he even writes it on a sticky note and puts it on his bathroom mirror. But then one of the dogs gets sick, and Haley's grandfather dies and they have to fly to Illinois for the funeral, and Brendon has (yet another) sexual identity crisis and sleeps in Spencer's guest room for a few days, and after two weeks Spencer takes the note off the mirror and throws it in the trash.

They're home for a month and Ryan doesn't call once, but it's okay, because it's not like Spencer calls either.

***

They all meet up in LA at the beginning of November to start working on their third album. Jon and Cassie spent two weeks in the Virgin Islands, and Jon's got the most ridiculous flip-flip tan Spencer's ever seen. Brendon wrote some sort of demented rock opera that he makes them all listen to; it's not bad, but the drums are all messed up, and Spencer's itching to go in and fix them. It's going to be a great album.

"Our finest work!" Brendon declares, waving his arms around. "The critics will weep!" He looks so happy that Spencer doesn't bother to argue with him.

Jon's rented out a big house for the duration, and they smoke up on the deck late that afternoon. Spencer lies on one of the lounge chairs with his eyes closed and listens to Brendon sing about a rocking horse. The sun's warm. He feels lazy and dried out. Later, Brendon and Shane go off to find dinner, and Jon and Ryan go to some party Pete told them about, and Spencer calls Haley and falls asleep in front of the television, watching a program about starfish.

He does an interview later that month, just him and some guy from Blender. Spencer's already forgotten his name. It's one of those lame "tell us about the new album" interviews; the rest of the guys finked out, and Spencer's on his own.

"So, you and Ryan grew up together, is that right?" the interviewer asks.

"That's right," Spencer says. He looks down at his lap. He's got a blister on one of his fingers and it's starting to peel. "He's my best friend."  



End file.
